Tokai University wins 1,860-mile World Solar Challenge for second year in a row

Fro the second year in a row, Tokai University can lay claim to the winner's laurels in the 2011 Veolia World Solar Challenge , a sun-powered race challenge in Australia that winds over 1,800 miles between Darwin and Adelaide using only 5 kWh of on-board energy and the rest beamed in directly from the sun. As the race's website says, "These are arguably the most efficient electric vehicles." According to the provisional results (so called because they are subject to protests from any of the teams, even though this is known as a "friendly competition"), seven teams managed to go the entire 2,998 kilometer (1,862 miles) but Tokai came out on top because their average speed – 91.54 kilometers an hour (56.88 miles per hour) – was faster than any other finisher. The Tokai's final time was 32 hours and 45 minutes. The fact that only seven teams finished out of a starting list of...